As Kara fetched Zach's clothes, Craig dressed himself and went to the kitchen to start breakfast. Zach appeared before Kara did, sporting his own jeans and orange T-shirt again. He climbed onto one of the two stools beside the stand-alone counter and observed Craig, who was just putting the finishing touches on a skillet-full of scrambled eggs.
"What are you making?" Zach asked.
"My specialty," Craig replied grandly. "Breakfast. What do you like?"
The youngster eyed the eggs in the skillet. "I like those."
"Scrambled eggs? That'll work." Craig flipped some of the eggs upside-down. "How about oatmeal?" He set down his spatula and retrieved plates for himself and Zach. A single bowl of oatmeal sat waiting near the microwave.
"I've never had it," Zach answered.
Kara came into the room just then. "Oh, you should try some." She shot a teasing smile at Craig, who rolled his eyes.
"Don't do it, Zach," he warned. "It's not worth it."
Zach looked from one adult to the other. "You don't like oatmeal?" he asked Craig.
"Well, let's put it this way," Craig said as Kara set her bowl warming in the microwave. "If you liked oatmeal, that would be strong evidence that you're not related to me."
"And if you didn't like it, I don't see how you could be related to me," Kara added.
"I could try some," Zach offered.
"A brave man." Craig saluted him with the spatula in his hand. He pulled a second bowl from the cabinet. "I'll give you a little. Since you know where the glasses are, why don't you grab some for us? And the juice in the fridge."
A minute later breakfast was served: oatmeal for Kara and Zach, plates full of eggs for Zach and Craig, and toast and orange juice for everyone.
"All right, Zach, give us the verdict," Craig encouraged, motioning toward the boy's oatmeal.
Zach dipped his spoon into the dish and sniffed it before lifting it to his mouth. He wrinkled his brows at the strange aroma, but took a bite anyway. He cocked his head to one side. "It's okay," he decided. "But I like eggs better."
"Looks like a draw," Craig declared. "He neither loves it nor despises it."
Kara scoffed. "That's not a draw! Clearly he decided in favor of the oatmeal, even if it's not his first choice. You'll have to try it with raisins sometime, Zach. There's nothing better than oatmeal with raisins in the morning."
"Better to stick with the eggs," Craig cautioned in a low tone. "Spare yourself the suffering."
Zach grinned at their bantering. He dug into his eggs, throwing in an occasional bite of oatmeal for good measure.
Kara looked over at Craig. "Did you call Derek?"
"Mm-hmm. I told him a family issue came up." Kara gave him a quizzical look. "Extended family. I told him I'd explain later."
Kara nodded. "So, Zach," she said, turning to the youngster, "we'll need to talk with someone in the office when we take you to school."
Craig scooped up some eggs with his fork. "We're going to see if we can get in touch with your family. The school should have your contact information."
Zach gave a heavy sigh. "Okay," he muttered.
"What was that?" Kara inquired, narrowing her eyes. "Do you have a better suggestion?"
The youngster frowned and shrugged. "I guess not." He took another bite of his eggs. "It's just that if you do find my home, nobody will be there." He chewed a moment. "But at least we could get my other clothes."
"Just clothes?" Craig asked. "What about toys, video games, other stuff…?"
"I don't have anything else," Zach said. "A few books, that's about all. And a radio."
Craig looked at Zach with a degree of wonder. Is he making all of this up, or is it true? He couldn't tell. The youngster's story was consistent, so far. But who would keep a kid caged up inside all day with nothing but a few books—yet send him to school? The pieces Craig had didn't fit together. Absently, he pushed his food around his plate with his fork, puzzled.
"Can we play that game again?" Zach asked with sudden interest.
"What game?" Kara responded.
"The one Dad and I played last night, where one person asks questions really fast, and the other one has to answer them really fast."
"Call me Craig," Craig told the youngster, "since I'm not actually your dad. What should I ask you about?"
"I want to ask you questions," Zach said.
"Oh—all right. Go ahead." Craig cleared his mouth with a swallow of orange juice.
"Okay… When is your birthday?"
"October 21. I was due to be born on Halloween, but I came early, and on Halloween my mom dressed me up as a pirate."
"What's your favorite color?"
"Blue. Did you know some trees are blue?"
Kara gave a snort and rolled her eyes.
Zach missed the joke, of course. "Yeah, I've seen them. How did you get a weird middle name like Herbert?"
This time Craig snorted. "It's not weird. Lots of people are named Herbert. I was named after my mother's father, Herbert Lewis."
"How old is Paws?"
"He's—" Craig had to look to Kara for help.
"Four years old," she inserted between bites of oatmeal.
"That's 28 in dog years," Craig added.
"What if I am your son and you just don't know it?" Zach asked.
Craig stared for a moment; this boy had understood Craig's intent last night, and now he was using the game to his advantage. Fair enough.
"Hmm," Craig began, thinking. "Zach, it's…complicated…to explain why that's not possible." The boy's gaze did not falter. "All right, for the sake of argument… If you were my son, I'd have a lot of learning to do. Kara and I would be ten years behind. And then—well, I'd want to know where you've been all these years. And then"—Craig paused for dramatic effect—"you'd be in huge trouble for not showing up earlier!" He feigned irritation, and Zach's eyes went wide. The youngster looked to Kara, and she instinctively gave him a comforting smile. Craig chuckled, and after a moment the boy smiled uncertainly.
Zach had another question ready. "Why couldn't you and Mom have kids?"
That one caught Craig by surprise. He gave a slow exhale and looked at Kara, who gave him permission with a sober nod. But how do you explain such things to a ten-year-old? "Well, see…the baby has to grow inside the mother, but the doctors couldn't get it to grow in there. Couldn't even get it to start. It wasn't her fault…" He offered Kara a supportive look.
She took up the story. "We don't really know what the problem was. There may have been something wrong with the cells my body would use to make a baby." She hesitated, pacing herself with a deep breath. "At first, when we tried to have a baby, it didn't work. A couple of years later, though, I started feeling sick, just like pregnant women do. I went to the doctor, and sure enough, I was pregnant! It was exciting…and scary. But the baby didn't live…" Her throat tightened up, and she couldn't continue.
"The baby died," Craig finished. "A miscarriage. It was still really tiny. There was some kind of problem with the baby—probably the cells it was growing from, the embryo."
"But we thought since I got pregnant once, maybe I could again—maybe the baby would live this time. So we tried, but nothing happened. Then we went to some doctors who help people have babies, and they tried to help us, but it didn't work. And they could never figure out why."
Zach listened silently. Craig could see him working the problem in his mind, trying to find some way he could still be their son. He wasn't, and there was no way around it, but he had not yet accepted that fact. So where had this youngster come from? Thankfully, they would find some answers at the school shortly.
Kara stood suddenly, wiping one eye as she took her dishes to the sink. "We should get there a few minutes early. Down the hatch with the rest of that, Zach." She motioned toward the last of his food.
"I think I do like the oatmeal," he told her as he swallowed the
last bite. "Could I try some again tomorrow? With raisins?"
"The likelihood of you being here tomorrow is very slim," Craig replied.
Kara smiled. "But we might like it if you came over to visit sometime—preferably dry and without a police officer."
*****
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 16